ie cone 
* 
CURRENT LITERATURE. 
BOOK REVIEWS. 
Morphology of angiosperms. 
Tuts book,‘ which follows the one on gymnosperms by the same authors, 
seems a successful accomplishment of the authors’ expressed purpose, “to 
organize the vast amount of scattered material so that it may be available in 
compact and related form.”” The want of such a book has long been felt by 
teachers, and several of the recently published accounts of research in this 
group make it evident that such a summing up of the facts and literature of 
the subject has been needed by investigators, The work is not merely a 
compilation, however, for much of the text, as well as the many pertinent 
figures credited to the authors, show that they themselves have worked over 
the subject-matter in many of its important phases. 
In the introductory chapter are pointed out the differences between the 
Symnosperms and angiosperms, which, the authors believe, justify the raising 
of each of these groups to the rank of a grand division of the vegetable king- 
dom, as has been done by Warming and others. The close similarity shown 
by the monocotyledons and dicotyledons is given as sufficient reason for con- 
sidering both groups together, in the discussion of each detail of develop- 
ment. The reviewer believes that the clearness, so characteristic of the book, 
could have been further enhanced by a separate treatment of each of these 
groups, 
The discussion of the structure and development of the flower in chapter 
Il is brief, but thoroughly modern, and it will doubtless serve a good purpose 
in helping to eradicate the older conceptions, still fostered in certain quarters 
by text-books and floras. 
A detailed account of the phenomena of reproduction is given in six 
chapters (111-1x) with the following headings: microsporangium, megaspo- 
rangium, female gametophyte, male gametophyte, fertilization, endosperm, 
and embryo, By the separate treatment of each of these phases of develop- 
ment the discussion gains much in lucidity and in convenience for reference. 
The still debatable view of Strasburger that the gametophyte begins with 
the spore mother-cell, in which the characteristic reduced number of chromo- 
Somes first appears, is accepted by the authors. They hold that this view is 
Supported also by the fact that in many temperate perennials the mother-cell 
Stage is the one at which the seasonal rest in development occurs. 
CouLTER, JoHN MERLE, and CHAMBERLAIN, CHARLES JosEPH, Morphology 
of Angiosperms (Morphology of Spermatophytes, Part II). 8vo. pp. vii-+ 348. figs. 
113. New York: D, Appleton & Co. 1903. $2.50. 
1903] 309 
